Are You A Begonia?
I am reading a great, award winning, and Pulitzer Prize winning book right now. The book is The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. This book has such great insight into our life, what Henry Adams calls our education. His theory was we spend our entire life being educated. One of the metaphors he used in the book was of people who were like Begonias. These are beautiful plants known for their brilliant flowers and fancy foliage. The begonia has both of these lovely features. You probably get the idea; he was describing people who are all show and no substance.
When raising Begonias you must place them where they can be in the light. Do you know people like this, that need to constantly be in in the limelight? Begonias like a lot of light so place them on windowsills that face east or west so that your plants get several hours of sunlight each day. I believe this is one of the reasons Henry Adams chose this powerful metaphor.
In doing a little studying on Begonias I also found that they became a staple of many bedding schemes, and in some cases, were quite over-used. Begonias became as disliked as euonymus is as a municipal shrub. Begonias became the lazy choice for parks and gardens up and down the country, often with the same old, tired varieties; either a mushy begonia semperflorens or the superb, but over-bright ‘Non-stop’ series! Sound like any people you know that are all talk and no action?
In my research, one botanist described using Begonias as having a desire for instant color and makeover effects … one-stop gardening – disposable, dramatic and needing no knowledge beyond which way up to stick the plant in the ground. Pretty good metaphor for all we do not want to be as a leader, don’t you think? Therefore we need to strive, as leaders, to not just be seen as bright flowers and foliage in delicate vases or as great explosions of leaf and flower, all brought indoors as theatre and decoration. But when they start to fade, they all go on to the compost heap.
Leadership Echolocation: How Big Are Your Ears?
This week’s leadership lesson (#17) from John Parker Stewart in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader, used the analogy of how big bats ears are to help inform us as leaders. Bats have the best hearing of all land mammals. They often have huge ears compared to the rest of the body. Instead of relying on their sense of sight for night-time vision, bats make rapid high-pitched squeaks called “ultrasounds”. These sounds are too high for most people to hear. If these sounds hit something, they bounce back — sort of like when you hear your echo in a mountain or a bathroom when you shout. The bat hears the echo and can tell where the object is. This is called “echolocation”. Therefore, bats actively listen instead of passively listening. In other words they listen for the feedback. Not every species of bat is able to echolocate, but most can.
I don’t know about you, but I wish I could use “echolocation” to really listen to those I serve. This story really resonated with me as we are studying deep listening in the Developing Myself course I am taking at Harvard University right now. We are doing exercises and case studies to develop true listening skills. Think about it… Would it not be great if we always concentrated on receiving the feedback instead of spending the time when others are talking with us to be devising our response. We need to spend time developing our listening skill to be that of a bat. In other words, we need to develop “leadership echolocation.”
“The bat’s two assets are listening and receiving feedback. How do you assess yourself in those two areas?” ~ John Parker Stewart
A useful tool I was taught to use at Harvard is that of the Ladder of Inference developed by Chris Argyris. The Ladder of Inference (shown here in a drawing I did for a professional development workshop on norming for teacher evaluation – I think you will be able to see how this would be valuable for those observing teachers) has six rungs:
- Observable Data
- Selected Data
- Assumptions
- Conclusions
- Beliefs
- Actions
The idea is to stay low on the ladder. As you move up the ladder away from observable data you begin to make your own meaning of what you are hearing. The problem is, this meaning may not be the same as the person you are listening to. Then some recursive loops begin to come into play. As we begin to form beliefs, we only listen and select data that supports our beliefs. See the problem? The other recursive loop that if we move to the top of the ladder and begin to take action, we only look for observable data that supports the meaning we have made out of the dialogue or situation. Again, the idea is to stay low on the ladder and keep moving back down the ladder.
So, how do we do we hone and perfect our “leadership echolocati0n?” As we find ourselves moving up the Ladder of Inference there are three things that will intentionally enables us to move back down the ladder:
- Question your assumptions
- Question your conclusions
- Seek contrary data to support or refute the meaning we are making
Most of us struggle with deep listening. Next time you want to have true dialogue with someone, consider where you are on the Ladder of Inference. Doing so will increase the feedback you receive from those you serve and have dialogue with.
Allowing Leadership
Leadership lesson #16 from John Parker Stewart in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader, told the story of Robert Townsend, CEO of Avis Car Rentals in the 1960s and 1970s. From reading this story and then getting his book Up The Organization (2007), I would say Townsend was ahead of his time in an error of command and control leadership. He broke decisions down as being either expensive (critical) or non-expensive (non-critical). His idea was that critical decisions take time to decide and should be handled by upper-leadership and the non-critical, less expensive decisions should be handled closest to the source affected by the decisions. This is very much intent-based leadership except that with intent-based leadership all information for decision making flows up from those affected.
“The whole organization may be out of business while you oscillate between baby-blue and buffalo-brown coffee cups.” ~ Robert Townsend
I love the example given that Townsend was reported to have said, “The whole organization may be out of business while you oscillate between baby-blue and buffalo-brown coffee cups.” In other words, decisions need to be made where they can most efficiently and effectively made. In other words, leaders need to intentionally and strategically think through who is in the best position to make decisions – both critical and non-critical. Doing this will give those in our organizations stronger sense of value, ownership in what is going on, and the sense of contributing to the organization as a whole.
Don’t get caught in the delegation trap. You’re busy doing everything yourself. You know you need help, but to find and train someone would take more time than you have. So you keep working harder until you break. In order to delegate effectively make sure your people know how you go about making decisions. This is also why have core values is important. If individuals are making decisions using the organization’s they are more likely to be in alignment. I also believe even making sure that the common values of the organization and myself are known by everyone is important. For example, I believe that making sure my blog posts are readily available to those in my organization is important. I encourage them to read my posts and send links often to particular posts because I want those I lead to know what I am thinking and what is important to me. I believe this helps them to make decisions that are in alignment with the vision and mission of the organization.
Next time you are making decisions think about whether you are the right one to be making that decision. Are you the one most impacted by that decision? If not, you probably shouldn’t be making it.
H2O Leadership
Water is key to the existence of life as we know it. That may sound dramatic, but it’s true—and dramatic things that are true are what make life interesting! The human body is 60 to 70% water. So, since we humans are already bodies of water that means when you put a team of people or organization together you have a large body of water – kind of like a lake, river, or ocean. Cool to think of it that way isn’t it?
Water has unusual chemical properties that make it very good at supporting life. Here are those properties:
-
Solvent properties of water: water dissolves many polar and charged molecules.
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Cohesion and adhesion of water: Water can stick to itself (cohesion) and other molecules (adhesion).
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Specific heat, heat of vaporization, and density of water: Water has a high heat capacity and heat of vaporization, and ice—solid water—is less dense than liquid water.
Water owes these unique properties to the polarity of its molecules and, specifically, to their ability to form hydrogen bonds with each other and with other molecules. Thanks to their polarity, water molecules happily attract each other. The plus end of one—a hydrogen atom—associates with the minus end of another—an oxygen atom.
“Is your team a group of separate atoms, or one giant, interconnected molecule.” ~ John Parker Stewart
In Leadership lesson #15 from John Parker Stewart in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader, Stewart uses the metaphor of the water molecule to describe how the bonds of our team members provides the strength of our organization. Just like water molecules, our team members need strength and flexibility to form strong interwoven molecular bonds. Basically, because of water ability to stick to itself a lake or ocean becomes one big molecule. Isn’t that what we wa²²nt our organization’s people to do? In other words bond to become one single structure.
We, as leaders, must also act like water. The most successful authentic leaders are like water, instead of being powerful they are essential. Since nothing can survive without water, it’s imperative that we learn from water. How can you strengthen the bonds of connection among your organization’s team?
Leading Toward Vs. Leading Against
I believe one of our most important roles as leaders is to help our teams to bounce back from change and challenge. It is really about always leading toward vs. against. In order to do this best we must practice deep listening, true dialogue, and intentionally moving ourselves toward a self transforming mind. At this time I find myself being self-authoring and emerging toward self-transforming. I do however believe that at times we hover between the three. In reality, I believe we all do depending on the circumstances and context (eg. work life, personal life, political life). For example, in some areas I would consider myself very conservative and still driven by beliefs instilled from my upbringing, thus still giving me a Socializing Mind. Conversely, in other areas, such as education, I am very transformational and reform-minded moving me toward the Self-Transforming Mind.
As a constructivist I believe that the world isn’t out there to be discovered, but that we create our world by our discovery of it. We make meaning of their surroundings, and that meaning is the surrounding; two people who see the same picture differently may actually, in their seeing of it, be creating two different pictures. In fact, I have even made the comment at times about others that, “When we look out the window, we see two different worlds.” Using Kegan’s (1994) definition that Constructive-developmentalists believe that the systems by which people make meaning grow and change over time, I really believe this might better describe me.
Kegan (2004) posited there are five Orders of mind, ranging from a two year old to a (mostly theoretical) person well into the second half of life. Each Order is a qualitative shift in the meaning-making and complexity from the Order before it. These orders are:
- First Order (mostly young children)
- Second Order—the “Sovereign” Mind (older children—seven to ten—and adolescents, but also some adults)
- Third Order—the “Socialized” or “Traditional” Mind (older adolescents and the majority of adults)
- Fourth Order—the “Self-Authored” or “Modern” Mind (some adults)
- Fifth Order—the “Self-Transforming” or “Postmodern” Mind (very few adults)
Here are brief descriptions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Orders: Individuals who operate with a Socialized Mind (3) are identified or fused with the beliefs of the larger group, which means they cannot reflect on them or question them, and are therefore shaped by their surroundings and the beliefs of others which guide their thinking and behavior.Those with the Self-Authoring Mind (4) are able to step back enough from the social environment to generate an internal ‘seat of judgment’ or personal authority, which evaluates and makes choices about external expectations. Leaders who operate with the Self-Transforming perspective can see across their own and others’ belief systems or ideologies to identify larger patterns. Their thinking becomes more dialectical, reflecting an increasing awareness of and orientation to paradox, contradiction, and oppositeness.Two values which before seemed to be in conflict are now seen as co-creating a larger, underlying value, and aspects of human existence that had formerly been seen as fundamentally “other” are now located within oneself.
If we were to go back and analyze the Byron Ernest of earlier in my career, I believe we would find me to have a Socializing Mind. There traits such as seeing the authority figure as the person who should shape one’s beliefs and as the person needing to be pleased. We would also see a 3rd Order person who needed to be right and would not be able to understand why others would not be able to see it my way. I believe, however, I have been able to develop toward a Self-Transforming Mind by creating a culture of excellence with an intent-based leadership style where we are moving from our staff being told what to do and moving toward staff informing leadership as to what they have been doing.
The book I recently read by Adam Kahane (2004) titled Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities was very eye-opening and valuable to me. The thing I am most blown away by is the reality Kahane (2004) pointed out, that “Talk by itself, even brilliant speeches by famous people, does not create new realities. Most of the time it reproduces old ones” (Kahane, 2004, p. 69). Kahane (2004) taught us that our toughest of problems can only be solved if we talk candidly and openly. As we know, this takes a lot of courage. It should also be noted that there must also be deep listening. This really hit home for me as a leader in the education arena. We have complex problems in our educational systems and we must all, as leaders, immerse ourselves in and be open to this full complexity.
In the book, Kahane (2004) also spoke of three areas of complexity: Dynamic, Generative, and Social. For me, the idea of dynamic complexity really hit home. Kahane (2004) said that, “Dynamic complexity requires us to talk not just with experts close to us, but also with people on the periphery” (p. 75). This means we must “widen the circle” and “deepen the bench,” which is very uncomfortable for us (Kahane, 2004). In reality, dynamic complexity heightens the subtlety between cause and effect. This heightened subtlety not only provides the key to explaining why some over-hyped tools don’t deliver, but is consistent with how growing knowledge in a field inherently advances and generates complexity. I believe this really describes our reality in education. This is why it is so important to involve all stakeholders in our solving of complex opportunities. Then we must employ open and deep listening, as this is the basis for all creativity. We must be open to truly listening to new ideas.
Kahane (2004) taught us: “[S]ocial complexity requires us to talk not just with people who see things the same way we do, but especially with those who see things differently, even those we don’t like. We must stretch way beyond our comfort zone” (p. 75). Wow, how true this is. Think about this for a minute; how many times when trying to solve complex issues do we really listen to those who think differently, see the world differently, or just flat-out don’t like us? As I reflect I realize that I need to continue to evolve and become completely open to the ideas of other persons. This gave me new insights into myself that I need to widen the circle of dialogue to all and deeply listen to their ideas and beliefs. Here are some things I have learned from Kahane (2004) to help us as leaders:
- To solve a complex problem, we have to immerse ourselves in and open up to its full complexity.
- Our core tasks need to be to “widen the circle” and “deepen the bench.”
- Tough problems can only be solved if people talk openly, and in many situations this takes real courage.
- Listen openly.
I was moved by Kahane’s (2004) definition of listening: [T]he process of taking in something new and being unsettled and changed by it” (p. 69). This definition forced me to ask myself: Am I a leader who listens?
Speaking of generative complexity, Kahane (2004) said, “Generative complexity requires that we talk not only about options that worked in the past, but also about ones that are emerging now” (p. 75). To me this is all about not getting caught up in thinking about how things have always been done, but about how no one has ever thought about doing them.
We need to remember that there are many interdependent parts of a complex system. Additionally, a complex systems world view highlights that interactions between parts of the system and the behavior of the system as a whole are critical. As leaders, we must learn to do a better job of seeking out, fostering, and sustaining generative relationships that yield new learning relevant for innovation.
When discussing leadership we tend to focus on leaders’ individual characteristics rather than on the dynamics of interactions between leaders, group members, and the context in complex organizational systems over time; and we certainly do not do enough toward our own professional growth as leaders, or those on our teams, to create conditions that allow their organizations to evolve (Surie & Hazy, 2006). We must also find ways to improve our own and organizations’ ability to learn continuously and implement learning in action as projects proceed.
References
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving tough problems: An open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Surie, G. & Hazy, J.K. (2006). “Generative leadership: Nurturing innovation in complex systems.” E:CO Issue Vol. 8 No. 4 2006 pp. 13-26.
Leading By Accident
Not too long ago I was sent a screen shot of a post on FaceBook (I don’t do FaceBook, so someone had to send it to me) – check out the picture with this post for the message. When I read the post I realized that while I live and lead according to what works for me, the core values of the organization I work for, and my personal core values, my efforts to become my best self have the capacity to positively affect people I didn’t even know were paying close attention. People I never would have thought were finding inspiration in anything I do, however, were telling me the opposite, and were indicating that my decisions about my own life, the way I led, and taking chances on them had inspired them to take chances in their own lives. I started to think about all the people who motivate and inspire me just by being themselves, and I surmised that they (we) are all leading by accident. We do our thing for our own reasons. But by being true to that thing, we may very well help people find their own thing, perhaps by creating a path that didn’t exist or illuminating one so others can see it. Hum… could it be this what empowerment really looks like?
Even if we don’t get to hear about how our lives affect others, they do. We are all leaders by accident in our own ways. Just as Dr. Alexander Fleming stumbled onto Penicillan in the 1920’s we stumble our way into others’ lives. Leadership lesson #14 from John Parker Stewart in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader, told the story of how Dr. Fleming discovered the bacteria killing mold, Penicillan, by accident. It ultimately took two other scientists to help make commercial production of Penicillan a reality. Had it not been for Dr. Fleming’s belief in what the accidental discover could do for humanity, who knows what would have happened, or where we would be today.
Even though in the formal sense we may not be leading that all the time – in our jobs, in our roles as parents, siblings, friends, et cetera; we really are being a leader (by accident) every moment of every day. The post from Reuben drove home for me the absolute truth of that statement. We may not be motivated by the desire to demonstrate leadership qualities when we become the arbiters of our own, most authentic lives, but we kind of can’t help it, it seems. So, go out there and lead by accident and intentionality.
Social Complexity
For each of the last two days I blogged about Dynamic Complexity and Generative Complexity respectively. My inspiration for these posts has been the book by Adam Kahane titled Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. I feel compelled to write about the third complexity he offered in the book: Social Complexity. As Kahane (2004) taught us: “[S]ocial complexity requires us to talk not just with people who see things the same way we do, but especially with those who see things differently, even those we don’t like. We must stretch way beyond our comfort zone” (p. 75). Wow, how true this is. Think about this for a minute; how many times when trying to solve complex issues do we really listen to those who think differently, see the world differently, or just flat-out don’t like us?
“Roughly, by a complex system I mean one made up of a large number of parts that interact in a nonsimple way. In such systems, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, not in an ultimate, metaphysical sense, but in the important pragmatic sense that, given the properties of the parts and the laws of their interaction, it is not a trivial matter to infer the properties of the whole. In the face of complexity, an in-principle reductionist may be at the same time a pragmatic holist.” ~ Herbert Simon in his 1962 article, “The Architecture of Complexity.”
I look at social complexity as being complicated by the very nature that we cannot provide a simple model of the system that adds up and makes sense of, or can predict the independent behaviors of the parts; rather, the parts are influenced in their behaviors by the behaviors of other people, groups, organization, governments, or even populations. This is in contrast with the simple system of an internal combustion engine. It might seem very complex, but really it is simple because every part, both moving and not, has a function and order in which to do that function.
In a spark ignition engine, the fuel is mixed with air and then inducted into the cylinder during the intake process. After the piston compresses the fuel-air mixture, the spark ignites it, causing combustion. The expansion of the combustion gases pushes the piston during the power stroke. In a diesel engine, only air is inducted into the engine and then compressed. Diesel engines then spray the fuel into the hot compressed air at a suitable, measured rate, causing it to ignite. This all very hierarchical in that everything happens in a specific order that never changes.
Let’s now contrast this with the social complexity and causal processes (sub-systems) that make up our education system. And consider some aggregate properties we may be interested in such as state law and policy, federal law and policy, political dynamics, local community social differences, socio-economic factors, race, mobility, or the social and emotional needs of our students to just name a few. Some of the processes that influence these properties are designed (Every Student Succeeds Act, school boards {both state and local}, school management systems), but many are not. Instead, they are the result of separate and non-teleological processes leading to the present. And there is often a high degree of causal interaction among these separate processes. As a result, it might be more reasonable to expect that social systems are likely to embody greater complexity and less decomposability than systems like an internal combustion engine.
“To create new realities, we have to listen reflectively. It is not enough to be able to hear clearly the chorus of other voices; we must also hear the contribution of our own voice. It is not enough to be able to see others in the picture of what is going on; we must also see what others are doing. It is not enough to be observers of the problem situation; we must recognize ourselves as actors who influence the outcome.” ~ Adam Kahane
This reminds me of a legislative panel I am on right now to look at and make recommendations to our state legislature on our high stakes summative state testing (required by the Every Student Succeeds Act – ESSA). This committee is made up of 23 different individuals and appointed by different entities. My appointment comes as being the representative of the Indiana State Board of Education. Needless to say, we have lots of social complexity. Needless to say it has been awkward and tenuous navigating on this panel. Here are some things I have learned from Kahane (2004) to help us as leaders:
- To solve a complex problem, we have to immerse ourselves in and open up to its full complexity.
- Our core tasks need to be to “widen the circle” and “deepen the bench.”
- Tough problems can only be solved if people talk openly, and in many situations this takes real courage.
- Listen openly.
I close with Kahane’s (2004) definition of listening: [T]he process of taking in something new and being unsettled and changed by it” (p. 69). I ask you: Are you a leader who listens?
References
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving tough problems: An open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Loving A Challenge
This week’s leadership lesson (#13) from John Parker Stewart in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader, played off the story of the invention of the potato chip. The story goes that it was about dinner time during Moon’s second summer season on the Lake. Moon’s Lake House, owned by Cary Moon, was one of the finest restaurants in the Saratoga Springs, New York area, a historically affluent and resort community. A customer came in and ordered Moon’s Fried Potatoes, the well-known house specialty. The cook, George Crum (born George Speck) whipped up a batch and served it to the customer, who complained that the potatoes were cut much too thick. So, he sent the item back to be remade. Crum did his best to make them thinner, yet when the discerning patron got his second order, again he complained that the thickness of the potatoes weren’t to his liking. So, once again, the customer told Crum to try again.
Crum, none too pleased that someone would insult his cooking, cut the potatoes paper-thin, dumped them in a vat of oil, let them cook so long that they became hard and crispy, and then salted them heavily, thinking that these “fried potatoes” would now be inedible. When served the item, the customer took a bite…and then another…and then another, before proclaiming that the fried slices of potatoes were delicious. It became known as the “Saratoga Chip.” The potato chip was born – so the story goes.
When reading this I was thinking of a leadership workshop that I did this past week with my great leadership jazz partner Mike Fleisch. I took the participants to lunch at The Old Bag of Nails in Westerville, Ohio. This was a great place and we had a great waitress. She needed to be because I pulled my trick of letting our waitress pick all our food for us. I did not tell any of the group of eight I was going to do this. When our waitress brought the menus I promptly told her we did not need them. I used my friend, David Marquet’s line of “We are control freaks and for our therapy we are going to let you choose our meals.” I think this freaked her out at first, but then she began to view it as a challenge and really got into it.
We did have two participants, however, that were having difficulty. I let everyone give a couple of guard rails, but our picky eaters were have trouble getting their minds wrapped around the idea of not being able to select their own meals. In the end they joined us in letting our waitress make all our selections for us. Bottom line: we had the time of our lives and awesome meals. We had awesome appetizers and I had an awesome Cold Water Cod Reuben on Marble Rye. Then, she brought Bread Pudding and the best Carrott Cake I’ve ever had. Everyone, even those who were challenged and uncomfortable at first, agreed we had a much better meal and a lot of fun because we had empowered our waitress to use her expertise to make our dining experience great.
“Opportunities often come in unpleasant disguises that must be removed with effort and ingenuity.” ~ John Parker Stewart
Our group had the opportunity to try new things and our waitress, who said she had never done this before, was given a challenge and absolutely loved sharing her favorites on the menu with us. We then debriefed and had a lively discussion, which Mike captured very well on the graphic at the beginning of this post. Take a look – you’ll be amazed at what all can be learned during lunch. As Stewart pointed out we need to see challenges and setbacks as opportunities for innovation and creativity.
Generative Complexity
Yesterday I blogged about Dynamic Complexity after reading in the book by Adam Kahane and is titled Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. Another type of complexity worth organizing our thoughts about is Generative Complexity. Kahane (2004) said, “Generative complexity requires that we talk not only about options that worked in the past, but also about ones that are emerging now” (p. 75). To me this is all about not getting caught up in thinking about how things have always been done, but about how no one has ever thought about doing them.
“We cannot develop creative solutions to complex human problems
unless we can see, hear, open up to, and include the humanity
of all the stakeholders and of ourselves. Creativity requires all
of our selves: our thoughts, feelings, personalities, histories,
desires, and spirits. It is not sufficient to listen rationally to inert
facts and ideas; we also have to listen to people in a way that
encourages them to realize their own potential and the potential
in their situation. This kind of listening is not sympathy, participating
in someone else’s feeling from alongside them. It is empathy,
participating from within them. This is the kind of listening
that enables us not only to consider alternative existing ideas but
to generate new ones.” ~ Adam Kahane
We need to remember that there are many interdependent parts of a complex system. Additionally, a complex systems world view highlights that interactions between parts of the system and the behavior of the system as a whole are critical. As leaders, we must learn to do a better job of seeking out, fostering, and sustaining generative relationships that yield new learning relevant for innovation.
When discussing leadership we tend to focus on leaders’ individual characteristics rather than on the dynamics of interactions between leaders, group members, and the context in complex organizational systems over time; and we certainly do not do enough toward our own professional growth as leaders, or those on our teams, to create conditions that allow their organizations to evolve (2006). We must also find ways to improve our own and organizations’ ability to learn continuously and implement learning in action as projects proceed.
References
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving tough problems: An open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Surie, G. & Hazy, J.K. (2006). “Generative leadership: Nurturing innovation in complex systems.” E:CO Issue Vol. 8 No. 4 2006 pp. 13-26.
Dynamic Complexity
I am reading a great book for one of my Harvard courses right now. The book is by Adam Kahane and is titled Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. The thing I am most blown away by is the reality Kahane (2004) pointed out, that “Talk by itself, even brilliant speeches by famous people, does not create new realities. Most of the time it reproduces old ones” (Kahane, 2004, p. 69). Kahane (2004) taught us that our toughest of problems can only be solved if we talk candidly and openly. As we know, this takes a lot of courage. It should also be noted that there must also be deep listening. This really hit home for me as a leader in the education arena. We have complex problems in our educational systems and we must all, as leaders, immerse ourselves in and be open to this full complexity.
“[D]ynamic complexity, situations where cause and effect are subtle and where the effects over time of interventions are not obvious. Conventional forecasting, planning and analysis methods are not equipped to deal with dynamic complexity.” ~ Peter Senge
For me, the idea of dynamic complexity really hit home. Kahane (2004) said that, “Dynamic complexity requires us to talk not just with experts close to us, but also with people on the periphery” (p. 75). This means we must “widen the circle” and “deepen the bench,” which is very uncomfortable for us (Kahane, 2004). In reality, dynamic complexity heightens the subtlety between cause and effect. This heightened subtlety not only provides the key to explaining why some over-hyped tools don’t deliver, but is consistent with how growing knowledge in a field inherently advances and generates complexity. I believe this really describes our reality in education. This is why it is so important to involve all stakeholders in our solving of complex opportunities. Then we must employ open and deep listening, as this is the basis for all creativity. We must be open to truly listening to new ideas.
“To create new realities, we have to listen reflectively. It is not
enough to be able to hear clearly the chorus of other voices; we
must also hear the contribution of our own voice. It is not enough
to be able to see others in the picture of what is going on; we must
also see what we ourselves are doing. It is not enough to be
observers of the problem situation; we must also recognize ourselves
as actors who influence the outcome.” ~ Adam Kahane
The long and the short of all this is that the world is changing at a rapid rate. This is true in all organizations and industries, but particularly in education. We had better understand this, as well as the caveat that we cannot expect more of the same when we plan for tomorrow!
Reference
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving tough problems: An open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Byron's Babbles 
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